Automatic car wash YUCK!!!

**Aaryn NZ** · 10-01-2014, 04:07 AM

Hello people.
Here are some pictures of a Subaru i did some polishing work on a little while back.
It came in to our shop for an insurance repair after being taken through the mighty automatic car wash. Challenge accepted!
Process was the normal for washing - decontamination etc, then test spot for polishing & settled on Megs 101 on orange LC CCS via Flex for the compounding step. 4 Inch LC CCS on Kestrel for tighter areas. Followed up with Megs 205 & sealed with Autoglyms High def wax.

Here we go - pictures at assessment stage:

50/50 photos during compounding. Found paint to be relatively soft and responsive:

A few hours later . . .
Some pictures of the Subaru done & ready to go. Sorry but no sun shots as late into the night when finished, so a couple of pics in the workshop & then the outside pics are before the sun came up the next morning:

So around 16 + hours spent turning this around, not counting any prep time & to note - only paint work was required for this job apart from a quick freshen up of the wheels for my own presentation benefit.
Three & a half days later the young lady & her irate mother came in saying "the scratches came back" !!!??? Not quite as polite about it either.
Seems one bad experience through a car wash wasn't enough. All that hard work for not much. Needless to say i refused to do any further work for them . . . after after pictures:

Automatic car wash wheel scrubber not lined up i'm thinking.

Thankyou all for viewing my rags to riches back to rags post.
Aaryn.

**Madness87** · 10-01-2014, 05:47 AM

How the heck do you mess up a car three days after it's been professionally detailed and all defects removed? Why were the car owners even washing it 3 days after defect removal and using an automatic car wash no less?

Seems like they realized that the car wash ruined the finish and tried blaming it on you and getting you to do it again.

**Goin Rogue** · 10-01-2014, 05:50 AM

Amazing work! Those 50/50 shots are amazing.

Too bad they ruined it by using the car wash.

**Wes Bremec** · 10-01-2014, 06:03 AM

New paint job haha

**af90** · 10-01-2014, 06:07 AM

Great job restoring that!

**KillaCam** · 10-01-2014, 06:18 AM

Wow those 50/50 shots are incredible. Who would've known there was metallic paint under there.
I can't believe they took it back to another auto wash. I'm guessing you guides them not to do that and they still did? Oh well, their waste of money.

**HUMP DIESEL** · 10-01-2014, 06:30 AM

Some people just never learn. I kept thinking the hood was crinkled up, but it was the reflection of the insulation in your ceiling..HA!

You did the right thing by saying.."NO!"

HUMP

Mike Phillips · 10-01-2014, 06:32 AM

Amazing restoration job! Love this shot!

Just to interject that sometimes your customer's can and will ruin your hard work by doing something as simple as taking their SCRATCH-SENSITIVE clearcoated car through an automatic car wash.

Any car wash that uses spinning brushes or the jostling mops is going to scratch your car's factory thin and factory hard paint. So don't do it if you want to keep your car looking good.

Nice save Aaryn, I'm really looking forward to meeting you and having you in my January Detailing Boot Camp Class.

**BillE** · 10-01-2014, 06:59 AM

Good grief! I'm just shaking my head.

After all that work...geeze, some people.

If anyone wonders about the damage that can be done by "the car wash," here's the answer.

Great 50/50 shots and work Aaryn!

Bill

**Desertnate** · 10-01-2014, 07:40 AM

Amazing turn around!

I can't imagine what that car wash looks like. I don't think I've ever seen one that would do that much damage in a single trip. Even on soft Subie paint.